


Allan Benée

by Perhaps7PercentStronger



Category: Annabel Lee - Edgar Allan Poe, Edgar Allan Poe - Fandom, POE Edgar Allan - Works
Genre: Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Horror, Literary Response, Poe - Freeform, Poetry, Poetry Response, Response, edgar allan poe - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 19:23:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1522694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Perhaps7PercentStronger/pseuds/Perhaps7PercentStronger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A response poem to Poe's "Annabel Lee," from the perspective of Annabel and focusing on the unnamed narrator of the original poem, now called Allan Benée.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Allan Benée

It was many too many a smirk ago,

In a prison by the quay,

That a dandy here hid, whom no one knows

By the name of Allan Benée;

And this monster he lived with no other thought

Than to fawn and obsess o’er his prey

 

I was no child and yet was beguiled,

In this prison by the quay,

As he trailed and he crept with much less than "love"—

He and his crown of gray;

With ideas that the damned demons of Hell

Happily would purvey.

 

And this is the reason that, Sunday morn,

In my dungeon near the quay,

A ploy from out of my mind allayed,

My ploy to lose Allan Benée;

Thus I did call my low-born sire

To bear me a lifetime away,

To feign this world I would have parted

And the prison by the quay.

 

The demons of Hell were cruel and beguiling,

And envied my clever escape—

Yes!—that was the reason (as well I know

In this prison by the quay)

That the devil came out of his fiery realm,

Whisp'ring and guiding that Allan Benée.

 

But a moment's distress was enough for my wit—

For all of my wit and my sway—

For all of my doubt to decay.

And neither the fiends in Perdition below,

Nor the angels holed up in their ley,

Would ever be able to foil my ploy

For the ominous Allan Benée.

 

So I took up my shank to go out to the bank

Of the quay beside which stood my grave;

For I knew there I'd find he who followed and pined,

At the quay with my freedom to claim;

And before the false casket knelt Allan Benée,

Him the monster—the monster—'twas him I did slay,

Heaved up the corpse to be locked away,

In that tomb by the quiet quay. 

**Author's Note:**

> This poem encompasses the original meter and strips away the romanticism of its counterpart. The innate perversity is therein revealed. Please please please comment! I love to hear from you all.
> 
> xoxoxoxo


End file.
